Top Six… Peter Stormare performances

There’s a film called Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters out this week. We’re big Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton fans here at Ross v Ross Towers, but this looks like a big dollop of crud. The story of Hansel & Gretel would work better as a slow-moving Michael Haneke piece, with a close-up of every bread crumb dropped in the forest. Anyway, we’re not interested in this film because of Jez and Gemma. We’re barely interested in it at all. The reason we are even slightly interested in it is because of one man: Peter Stormare. He may not have a name you know but he has a face you have almost definitely seen. And for some reason he’s in Hansel & Gretel: Cruise Control or whatever it’s called. But forget it. Here are his truly greatest movie moments.

6. Armageddon

Michael Bay. You either hate him or you hate him so much you cannot express how much you hate him. That’s actually a little unfair. The Rock is a fun piece of tosh and I think Armageddon falls into the same category. It’s made more fun by Stormare’s appearance late in the day as a crazed cosmonaut who’s been stuck in space a little too long. And if you thought Bruce Willis saved the day in this movie, think again.

5. Minority Report

If this was made now amid the usual muck that slimes its way into cinemas under the slippery title of ‘blockbusters’ these days, it would immediately be proclaimed as the best film ever made. Minority Report is the perfect example of a box office beast that has brains as well as action. Stormare crops up again late on, helping Tom Cruise with some surgery that will help him see things from a whole new perspective. And he even makes the Cruiser a sandwich. Aw, isn’t that nice.

4. The Lost World: Jurassic Park

Stormare had already worked with Spielberg before Minority Report, as a particularly nasty dino hunter who is the sequel’s Dennis Nedry. He even gets to swear in his native Swedish.

3. Fargo

So Fargo, so fargood. Stormare’s big break in Hollywood and well deserved. Playing the completely reprehensible Gaear Grimsrud, he still manages to stand out in a film packed with terrific performances. We could show him throwing the remains of Steve Buscemi into a wood chipper, but let’s play nice and watch him pine for some pancakes instead.

2. Constantine

There have been some good Satans in movie history (not you, Elizabeth Hurley), but Stormare is a fantastically creepy Lucifer in the massively underrated Constantine. He really could do with giving his feet a scrub, though.

1. The Big Lebowski

More Coen brothers action from Stormare, where he steals several scenes as Uli Kunkel, also known as Karl Hungus. When he’s not lying wasted in a pool or fixing cable TV, he’s chasing after you with a giant pair of scissors to cut off your penis. What a guy.